If you’ve never been to New York City’s High Line Park – a one-mile stretch of linear greenway on the former New York Central Railroad in lower Manhattan – you have truly been missing out. Once an abandoned, elevated railway area, the High Line is now a sustainable, inviting stretch of urban green space that attracts people from all over the city, and the world. It’s a perfect example of utilizing urban space in an environmentally conscious, community-driven way.

For some time now, residents in Queens have been hoping to develop their very own version of the Manhattan High Line, utilizing the “Queensway” to create a massive park and cultural hub. The Queensway is even more sprawling that the High Line; at 3.5 miles long it would be an ideal place to create parks, pop-up storefronts, bike trails, and more. Friends of the Queensway is a local organization that has been working to get approval and funding to begin the ambitious project of transforming the abandoned railway.

Photo credit: Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao

Photo credit: Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao

Photo credit: Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao

Photo credit: Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao

According to the organization, Friends of the Queensway is “a community-led effort to transform the blighted, 3.5 mile stretch of abandoned railway in Central Queens (Rego park, Forest Hills, Woodhaven, Richmond Hill, and Ozone Park) into a new linear park and cultural greenway.” Currently, the organization has commissioned a team of consultants to conduct a feasibility study and planning process in hopes of creating options for converting the abandoned railway into an incredible green space for residents of Queens and visitors.

If realized fully, the Queensway would provide many benefits to the area, such as improving the quality of life for residents, sustain the local economy, celebrate the local diversity, improve public health and inspire more active living, create a new park space, and upgrade the environmental conditions in the area. Can’t you just imagine a three-mile stretch of parks, recreational areas, and shops along the Queensway?